Sunday, June 28, 2009

Events in Marid within a nutshell

 Several days ago, I explained the arrival in madrid; how being thrown into an new environment, and having my mind-scape and thoughts disrupted,  forced me to find a way to adapt and conjure a positive attitude for my stay in the big city. On the first day, I met my expedition guides, whom I discovered became the dominant leaders, rather than the teachers. Davin, the male guide, stands 6 feet, with a relaxed posture, bowed legs, and typical spaniard features (burnt umber hair, and a patch of fur centered between his bottom lip and chin). He hails from Wyoming, grew up in Colorado, and taught Spanish at Boulder University, looking to achieve a PHD in Literature, he is rather intense from the information I gathered about him; he coached track, and is no stranger to skiing and rock climbing, unsurprisingly. I hope to share a road run with him at some point in the trip. Megan, stands about the same height as Davin, wears eyeglasses, has long brown curls on her head, and vaguely reminds me of a softer version of an Amazonian of the myths. She is big into cleaner eating, but still doesnt understand the ultimate dieting essentials, anyway, time for me to shut up about food. Thursday and Friday of the first week were the essence of the city for me, Thursday brought me to the Reina Sophia museum, while friday brought me to the world famous Prado and the Royal Palace of Madrid. I had lugged a gratuitous amount of gear with me upon the visit to the Reina Sophia, including my D40, tripod, 200mm telephoto lense, wide-angle lense, and my good old 70mm zoom lense. I made sure to pin my zippers shut, so my wallet couldn't be accessed by anybody but me. The Reina Sophia turned out to be a modern art museum, with nothing in the collection dating before Picasso I assumed, this museum was a fresh breath for my eyes; I remember my eyes watering with anticipation about seeing my first work of Picasso, coupled with a room of Dali's I hadnt seen. The structure if seen from the top would remind you of a picture frame, the entire establishment was a neat square. My favorite masterpiece in the collection was Dali's "The Great Masturbator", as usual, the painting depicts a single subject with several symbols, crawling over each other, or alienated from the main body of the painting, on Dali's landscape. Friday was possibly more important, the Prado held a collection of the Spanish and Flemish Masters I hadn't been familiar with, such as: Bosch, Velazquez, Goya, and El Greco. I was most excited about seeing Velasquez, a figure whom Dali himself had mentioned as being far more talented than himself, in a humorous interview. Dali can often make ridiculous and outlandish statements about himself, such as titling  himself as "too intelligent to be a good painter". You always wonder what he definitely thought of himself or others around him, we do know that life was a big party to him. It was interesting to discover that Velazquez did not paint with a sketch or plan underneath, he corrected as he went, which is evident when you take a close look at "The Portrait of Phillip IV"; you can clearly see the outline of a third leg pointed outward, presumably where Velazquez changed his mind. The idea of painting over mistakes is something I had tried recently with acrylics, and something I deal with in Ink as well. The Spanish painters of this era were more impressionistic in their approaches than those of the Italian school. Goya displayed this clearly if you look closely at his work, details are only evident when you stand far away from the paintings. This idea of fast painting became very unattractive to me after a while. Of the small portion of the Prado's collection that I saw, Goya was most provocative to me, for his time, his paintings seemed like they would have bought him a death sentence. His work is vibrant, surreal, and chaotic, his juxtapositions in his tryptic work kept my attention longer than the works of the previous artists. Overall, Madrid, by its culture, was not a surprise for me, but it had plenty of jewels to offer.

"The Great Masturbator" by Dali


"The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Bosch



"The Forge of Vulcan" by Velazquez















Friday, June 26, 2009

Arrival in Madrid

 At the point that we hopped off the bus, my fatigue due to "jet lag" and lack of proper nutritional maintenance heightened my frustration. Our Hostal was what I expected it to be, the atmosphere reminded me of a cheap nail salon, don't ask me how I can make that comparison. My living environment had just enough space to perform some resistance exercises, like floor sweepers, V sit ups, draw bridge sit ups, incline pushups, and curls with bags. Anyway, the treks we endured through the city reminded me of my experience with Italy and France. the architecture was a division between urban trash and beautifully carved and railed spanish relics, but this would be the standard throughout the cities. I was hit with boredom, uncertainty and anxiety about being in this city, with these 15 new people.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

My first impressions and feelings about the departure.

 I don't plan on making things short in this blog space, because I have unlimited space to work with, just like any canvas or parchment for paint, ink or graphite. My expectations for the trip were to capture views of Spain, and maybe the more abstract essences of the country, things that are merely provocative, and exist in the space. Other than that, I am living with 15 unfamiliar peers, people I normally would not situate myself with, based on my preferences and tastes. I don't know how fond of the others I will become, but I don't doubt that there will be some eccentricities within the minds of my peers. For the time preceding the trip, I forged my body to a higher quality in an effort to brace myself for the shift in my lifestyle when I arrived in Spain. I knew I would not be eating my regular foods, and forced to litter my temple with the local delicacies; not that it would destroy what I have achieved, but It is a downgrade nonetheless. The plane flight was the beginning of this lifestyle shift, it felt as if I was experiencing drug withdrawal, those 7 hours were a shift in my body's balance. 


This is me before the flight...



 after the flight...